Beverly Fitzhenry

On Monday evening, February 7, 2005 Beverly Fitzhenry of Polson, Montana passed away from complications after heart surgery at St. Patrick Hospital in Missoula, Mont.

Beverly was born on October 23, 1944 in Falfurias, Texas to Almond L. and Willie A. Fitzhenry. She graduated from Washington University in St. Louis, Mo. in 1966 with a BS degree in Chemistry. She received her MS in Organic Chemistry in 1968 from Brandeis University in Waltham, Mass. After graduation she had worked at the Sperry Research Center, Sperry Rand Corporation and the Polaroid Corporation in Mass. In 1975 Beverly and her husband met at the Philips Research Laboratory in Briarcliff Manor, N.Y. and were married in 1980. In 1980 they had moved to California where she pursued her career in the computer disk and disk drive industry as an analytical organic chemist specializing in micro-contamination in the manufacturing environments of companies Memorex, Seagate Technology, MaxMedia Corporation and her own company, Mission Laboratories. She also had taught organic chemistry at Foothill College, all in the Santa Clara, Calif. area. Beverly and her husband retired from Silicon Valley, CA last year and moved to Polson, MT in June 2004. Her passions included gardening, cooking, photography and touring this great state of Montana!

Her husband Ken Ritz, her sister Ina Coor Fitzhenry, brother-in-law Lattie Coor, nephews Kendall and Colin Coor, niece Farryl Bertmann of Phoenix, Ariz. , brother and sister-in-laws Ron and Melinda Ritz of Bellevue, Wash. and Criag Ritz and Karen Hilberg of Haskell, N.J. survive Beverly. A heartfelt loss to her surrogate mom, Mrs. Martha Smith Flaming of Falfurias Texas, her surrogate dad, Mr. Jerry Nolan of Rockland, Calif. and her surrogate brother Mr. Bill Chandler of Livermore, Calif. goes out as well.